Wendy and Lucy (Kelly Reichardt, USA): 53

The first warning flag was the sock -- singular because Wendy's only wearing one of them, a costume decision that immediately struck me as a way-too-calculated bid for our sympathy. Then came the almost comical self-righteousness of the supermarket stockboy, who isn't merely keen to bag a miscreant but seems to be belatedly auditioning for McCain's VP spot, barfing out sound-bite non sequiturs like "the rules apply equally to everyone." (What were the hypothetical grounds for favoritism? Cuteness?) And then the movie just flat-out lost me when (a) Wendy waited until the cops were driving her away to inform them that her dog was tied up in front of the market -- Lucy would be her primary concern; she'd be badgering them before they even left the manager's office -- whereupon (b) they completely ignored her...because, as we all know, the Man just don't care, not even about innocent pooches. Let's see Poppy keep her spirits up in this socio-economic cul-de-sac! (There's even a rambling homeless dude.) Kindly Walgreen's security guard gets some nice, tender moments, but you can barely hear him over the sound of modernity's wheels grinding poor Wendy to bits. The cheap pathos rarely lets up -- I mean, couldn't her sister and brother-in-law have at least come across as genuinely concerned (even if not enough to do more than offer platitudes), rather than as oblivious and obnoxious, respectively? Did we have to get a sad little insert of the guard's handout (which I had only assumed to be maybe $20 to begin with, frankly)? Sure, I got choked up at the end, but only in a shameless Old Yeller kind of way; comparisons to Umberto D. only reveal that most people don't understand why De Sica's film is so unbelievably heart-rending. The key word is "dignity." Wendy and Lucy opts instead for pity, which is not a road I wanted to see someone as gifted as Reichardt go down.

Posted on 10/13/08 by: dangelo 12:56 PM